Erik Estrada visits Lubbock's Alliance Church with 'Finding Faith' film

Former 'CHiPS' star turned real-life deputy fights Internet predators

Erik Estrada stands in front of a promotional poster for "Uncommon" in Alliance Church. The actor is featured in this movie as well as "Finding Faith," a film about a young girl who is kidnapped by an Internet predator.

Erik Estrada played officer Frank Poncherello on the television series “CHiPs” 30-plus years ago. These days he’s the real thing.

Estrada pinned on a real sheriff’s deputy badge in 2009 for the Bedford County, Va., Sheriff’s Office and devotes his time to catching Internet predators.

He recently starred in “Finding Faith,” a film about a young girl who is kidnapped by an Internet predator. The film was shown at Alliance Church, 5825 34th St., Wednesday evening, Nov. 13.

Estrada and film producer Dean Haskins are touring the country to spread their message of safety to church congregants.

“This is about the 147th church I’ve been to,” Estrada said. “For the last eight years, I’ve been doing this work.”

Haskins said churchgoers sometimes feel insulated in their communities, which could leave them and their kids vulnerable to Internet predators.

“This is real,” Estrada said. “This goes on.”

Alliance Church pastor, the Rev. Jesse Rincones, said he hopes parents and kids who see this film take it seriously.

“We’re hoping that the parents will — if they’re not already familiar with the risks — that they will realize the importance of them getting involved,” Rincones said. “And we hope that students will learn to be careful about who they talk to.”

Estrada said he always wanted to be a cop, but he got sidetracked by a girl at age 17 who was an actress. At 19, he made his first movie, which was faith based.

“Here I am 40 years later doing faith-based movies,” he said.

The film’s central character, Faith, is a combination of three girls, Haskins said. In the film, Faith accepts a friend request from someone she thinks is a sweet, mature teen-age boy, but in reality he’s anything but.

Haskins recounted how Estrada became more than a spokesman for Safe Surfin’ and how serious law enforcement officers investigate online predators.

“They’ve got secret locations where they’ve got investigators talking in chat rooms, luring. One of those investigators showed Erik some pretty nasty stuff and it just enraged Erik,” Haskins said.

As soon as Estrada saw that he went to Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown and said “I’ll do whatever you want,” Haskins said.

For the past eight years, Estrada has been outspoken about the dangers of Internet predators.

For the first year after the film’s release Haskins said the production company wanted to make sure kids and their parents saw the movie before it was passed on to a distributor for release.

“Kids without education are too willing to share information that ends up being too much information and is what ultimately leads to their demise,” Haskins said.

The Southern Virginia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force designed some sophisticated crime-fighting software described as being a “cop in a box,” Haskins said.

“It’s software and hardware put together with the sole purpose of cracking and apprehending Internet predators of children,” he said.

More than 30 of these systems have been donated to law enforcement agencies in strategic locations by Safe Surfin’, Haskins said. JC Films — “Finding Faith’s” producer — partnered with Safe Surfin’ to raise funds to donate more computer programs to police.

“The more cops they put online,” Haskins said. “The more predators they can take offline.”